HME Trail Camera 12V/Solar Auxiliary Power Pack Durable Weather-Resistant Housing Easy Installation & Versatile Compatibility, Black

These save us a lot of money on buying AA batteries.

This is a must buy if you run cellular trail cameras. I’ve had this running a Spartan GoLive for a month now and it hasn’t skipped a beat. I could have bought multiple of these with all the money I’ve wasted on AA batteries. Even during extended periods of cloudy days, it still shows a full charge. Will definitely be buying more!

This HME solar charging battery pack, mechanically, is a great design. It uses a standard 12V, 7 Ah sealed lead acid battery which can be replaced for about $20 from your local sporting goods store.The power cable is shielded by either a braided wire shield or a spiral ¼” i.d. flexible steel conduit. The spiral steel conduit is squirrel proof. A squirrel can chew through the braided wire shield. You get one or the other, no choice. The plug fits my Browning and Moultrie trail cameras perfectly. I have three active cameras all the time.I purchased 8 of these HME solar charging battery packs between 2020 and 2024.The first one came from Academy Sports in Texas, the other 7 came from Amazon. My most recent purchase was November 16 from Amazon and received about 5-6 days later. I purchased TWO because they were $47 and change, the lowest price I ever saw on these. Now they are at $50.88.All that is good stuff, Now I will talk about the BAD stuff!1. Out of 8 HME solar battery packs only TWO are working!2. I still have one of the two I just received that is still in the box so I don’t know if it works or not.3. FIVE of these HME solar charging battery packs have FAILED in this four-year span.4. The FAILURE MODE in the FIVE that do not work is the same in all five units. The solar panel and/or the associated voltage regulation circuitry in the charging module does not put out adequate voltage to charge the battery. The solar panel and voltage regulator SHOULD put out 13.8 – 14 VDC as measured with the charging wires disconnected from the battery while the solar panel is facing full sun. This newest one is outputting only 3.45 volts in full sun! This is the same failure mode seen in all five units that have failed to charge. THIS unit failed in less than 6 weeks of being in service! That is not acceptable!Because this latest purchase was in November 2024, it is now outside the 30-day return window. I had to call HME Support to get a return.HME Supports is WORST in class!HME is located in Texas but the tech support appears to be in some Asia Pacific region. My first call was answered by a guy whose English is better than my Chinese but his English is not good enough! After asking him to speak slower, he collected my email address and sent a message to me. He said to reply to that message with a photo of the item and proof of purchase. I provided these two items and a brief description of the problem and sent the message. It all seemed to be too easy! Less than one minute later I got this reply back in my email:“Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender (BLOCKED)”By then the agent was on another call. So I called back. This time I got a woman also of Asian descent. I could not talk to her because her audio was broken up in just fractions of words and syllables, stuttering, chopped up audio. A terrible VOIP connection! She could hear me okay and said she would contact the first agent and have him contact me again. NOPE! NOTHING!I called the THIRD time and got yet another Chinese sounding guy. He was even more difficult to understand! I explained the first email that was sent to me blocked my reply so I could not send the requested information to HME. We tried another email I have from a completely different provider. He sent the message; I received it and sent the photo and receipt back to his email. BAM! - BLOCKED again!Now I am left hanging in HME hyperspace with a defective product that they do not want to take care of and Amazon does not want it either!To sum up:The Good:This HME solar battery pack is a very durable design mechanically. That is what I like about it.• The battery in it is a single 12V, 7Ah sealed lead acid type that costs $20 to replace if necessary. That is far better than most solar trail cam battery packs that use multiple AA rechargeable batteries with current (Ah) limited by that of a single AA battery, (usually 2300 mAh (2.3 Ah in real speak).The BAD:• My experience shows the solar panel and associated charging circuity has a 71.4% Failure Rate (5 out of 7 units). It is easy to replace the battery but the solar panel and circuitry cannot be replaced! When these components fail the whole unit is just a box with a battery in it that does not charge (basically, a BRICK).The UGLY:• HME customer service! So far, in my experience in the past three days is ZERO!• They speak poor English, difficult to converse with them.• Their network system BLOCKED my emails; two messages from one email provider and one message from a completely different email providerMy ratings:• Three stars for the mechanical packaging and design of the case and battery used.• ZERO stars for functionality• ZERO stars for Tech Support• Let’s face it, it is really only ONE star!

Arrived on time. Easy to set up. Does not provide power to Moultrie Edge 2 for more than 3 weeks even with direct sunlight and rechargeable batteries. Alkaline and Lithium batteries only last 4 weeks. Seems well built.

The overall price and product is nice and compact. I have yet to put it out in the field. Unfortunately, the supplied adapters did not fit tight or allowed enough of the exposed male connector to fit completely up in the new Moultrie Edge 2 to keep the power on. Just the weight of the cord would make it drop from the connection port being too loose. I had to get the dremel and cut off their sliding threaded adapter behind the male plug. Fortunately, Moultrie had a cord retention adapter with the camera you can slip over the barrel and tighten it down holding it firmly up to the camera body. We will see how well it works this season.

Highly recommend. Bought a cable to easily connect to my WiseEye Data Camera. Holds charge for months with the added solar panel.

Bottom line: it works.

Worked good for a week, not sure what happened now. Battery last a lot longer than it used to but doesn't stay charged like it should.